


Til the daylight comes or I'm dead and gone

by impossibletruths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Prompt Fill, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: “Has anyone found anything?” she says over the earpiece, and she’s proud to hear her voice stay steady.“No,” says Percy. He hesitates. “Vex.”“No,” she says immediately. She doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t. He’s her brother. He’s everything she’s got.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Brother" by Lord Huron.
> 
> about fourteen years ago I asked for genfic prompts and I'm finally getting to them
> 
> for [@pansychubb](http://pansychubb.tumblr.com), who said: one member of VM is lost/separated/restrained and taking continual damage from a slow-working poison and they have to find him/her before it’s too late, meanwhile only being able to communicate via earpiece)

They’re eight days underground, roughly––the cycle of day and night is hard to judge without sun or moon or sky––and mostly it just reminds Vex of the Underdark. It’s the same oppressive dark, the same claustrophobic press of stone, the same damp silence. Gods, but it makes her miss the open air. **  
**

They’ve work to do, though, so she swallows her frustrations and pushes on.

And, for eight days, it goes fine. Slow, yes––the caverns are a twisting, winding warren of low tunnels that bend and turn back on themselves, and more than once they’ve had to retrace their steps as they’ve gotten lost among the caves––but fine. After the world-shattering disasters they’ve dealt with, this is practically effortless.

So, of course, they get complacent.

The morning of the ninth day––though, honestly, who knows what time it is––arrives exactly like every other. The lot of them are anxious, irritable from their time underground. Grog and Vax have been picking fights for the past three days, and Keyleth has grown sullen and snappish. Percy has been steadily retreating into himself; Pike’s light seems dimmed; even Scanlan’s songs seem stale and heavy like the air around them. And, yes, okay, so maybe her temper is shorter than usual.

It has been hard on everyone. But as they rise, and squabble, and press on, they finally arrive at their destination.

The labyrinth is enormous. Keyleth kneels down, places her palms against the rough stone, and tells them it stretches for miles, too big for her to see even with her magic. Vex thinks of another week caught within the monstrosity and shares a long, unimpressed sigh with Percy.

But somewhere in the maze is the prize they’re here to collect. Somewhere in there is the artifact an incredibly rich asshole is willing to spend thousands and thousands for, and it will be worth it, she tells herself. It will.

But, they have to find it first.

“Let’s split up,” Scanlan suggests immediately.

“We should stay together,” Keyleth disagrees, anxiously twisting her hands around her staff.

In the end, they decide to compromise, combing through sections at a time––individually, but near enough that they can hear each other, because they’ll cover more ground that way. They start at a central crossroads and each goes in a separate direction, like rays of a star, carefully unspooling the balls of yarn they’ve brought along for this very reason. And, for a while, it all goes perfectly well.

And then, of course, it doesn't.

 

They’re easily a mile into the labyrinth when Vax voice crackles over the earpiece, breathing rough and heavy, and Vex feels her heart go cold.

“Well,” say her brother, voice strained, “I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” asks Scanlan.

“I found the thing. Accidentally.”

“And the bad?” asks Pike.

“I think I may have set something off.” A stranger would think he sounded lighthearted, but Vex knows him better than that. She hears the pain he’s tamping down clear as day, and it sends worry spiking through her. “I could use a little help.”

“Where are you?” she demands. Her fingers flex at her side; she wishes she had the space to mount her broom and go racing after him, but in these narrow corridors it is more a hindrance than a help.

Of course it would be her brother. Of course.

“I’m, ah, not sure,” he admits. “There was a trap I didn’t _fucking_ notice.” He pauses for a moment to breathe tensley through his teeth, and the sound puts Vex on edge. “I think it might have done one of Scanlan’s tricks. There was a lot of purple light and I’m... not there anymore.”

“Well, shit,” Scanlan mutters, voice faint through their crackling connection. Vex agrees. The string paths they’ve left through the warren of tunnels does them no good if Vax isn’t at the end of his.

“So where is he?” as Percy, and he’s nowhere nearby but the calm in his voice helps soothe the rapidfire beat of her heart. Rationality, yes, that will help most.

“Well, he can’t be _that_ far away,” Scanlan says after a moment. “Maybe five hundred meters in any direction?”

“Five hundred meters?” Vex squawks.

Grog snorts. “Isn’t that like, pretty far?”

“It’s... it could be worse,” Pike offers, but she doesn’t sound like she believes it.

“Right,” says Vex, reigning everything in. There will be time for worry later; right now her dumbfuck idiot of a brother needs her help. “Right, okay.”

This would be easier if they weren’t on their own, but they’ve pulled through worse.

“We’ll work outwards,” she decides. They’re already split up so they might as well. “Scanlan, veer north. Percy, you’re west. Keyleth, east. I’ve got south. Grog, work back central; you can relay messages if we get too far out of range of the earrings. Pike, join Grog.”

“What?” asks Pike. “Why?”

Percy answers for her. “When we find him it’ll be easier for you to find us from the starting point.”

Vex appreciates that he says _when_ and not _if_.

She pauses, squares her shoulders even though no one is around to see her. “Hear that, brother? We’re coming.”

There is no response.

“Vax?” Keyleth asks, voice soft over the earpiece, and there’s a grunt on the other side. Vex’s heartbeat doubles.

“‘M here,” he says after a moment. “Just, ah, hurry?”

“He’ll be fine,” says Grog. “Little shit gets into trouble all the time.”

Vex wishes she believed him.

Scanlan interrupts her worry. “We’re burning daylight, folks,” says the gnome, even though they haven’t seen sunlight in days. Vex takes a deep breath and releases Trinket from the necklace––it will be a narrow fit, but speed and certainty matter far more than comfort right now.

“Alright, buddy,” she murmurs to him and he licks her hand. “Your uncle’s gotten himself into a bit of trouble, again, and we need to find him. Think you can help?”

Trinket rumbles an insulted affirmation and lumbers at her side as she skirts down the tunnel, following instinct as much as reason. She remembers this, almost. She remembers Uriel’s palace, and a foolhardy idea, and wandering off and _jenga_ and a tug at her heart that was more than just fear.

It’s that almost-feeling she follows now.

It pulls her forwards, headed in a sweeping arc to the southeast. There’s chatter over the earpieces as she goes––Scanlan trying to crack jokes, mostly, and they’re horrendous things––but she focuses on her brother’s labored breathing, and eventually Scanlan’s voice fades as the situation grows more and more dire.

“Still there, Vax?” Pike asks, when it has been fifteen minutes and they still have not found him. This labyrinth is enormous, Vex thinks to herself with mounting panic. How will they ever find him? How will they find him in time?

“Might just… rest… for a moment,” Vax says after a long pause. Vex’s heart leaps into her throat.

“Don’t you dare,” she orders. “Keep talking. It’ll help us locate you.”

“Just a for moment,” he promises, words slurring together. “Everything’s a little woozy.”

“Stay awake, Vax,” Keyleth says, caught between fear and coaxing, and her brother sighs.

“I’m just… a lil tired.”

He doesn’t say anything, after that. Vex picks up her pace.

The minutes tick by, measured by the pounding of her feet on the rough stone. Panic threatens to choke her but she swallows it down because she has to find her brother; she doesn’t have time to break down.

They reach the half hour mark. The labyrinth is silent like a grave.

“Has anyone found anything?” she says over the earpiece, and she’s proud to hear her voice stay steady.

“No,” says Percy. He hesitates. “Vex.”

“No,” she says immediately. She doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t.

He’s her brother. He’s everything she’s got.

“Vex.” It’s Scanlan this time, soft and serious, and Vex swallows a sob, twists around another corner. Red string winds back behind her, blood-bright against the dark stone. The ball in her hand is small; she has come a long way. “It might be too late.”

“It isn’t,” she says fiercely. It can’t be.

And then, then, like a miracle, like a prayer answered, Trinket’s head snaps up. Vex’s pulse spikes.

“You found him?” she asks her bear, looking him straight in the eye. “You found Vax?”

He rumbles and pushes past her, the beat of his paws on the stone matching the thrum of her heart. She races after him, ignoring the noise and confusion coming over the earring as everyone else demands to know what’s going on.

Trinket slides to a stop in front of a branching corridor, whining at the darkness, and Vex pushes past him, heart in her throat, hoping more than she has hoped for anything, and finds––

He’s curled on his side, too pale in the faint light she carries with her, and trembling, and there’s a sheen of sweat across his brow. The heavy shadow of his armor seems to swallow him whole.

But, he is here.

“Pike,” she says, raising a shaking hand to her ear. Her heart is in her mouth; it makes it difficult to speak. “Pike, he’s here I found him.”

Pike’s steady voice echoes at her ear. “I’m coming,” she says. “Hold on.”

Vex nods, even though there is nobody there to see it, and crouches next to her brother.

He looks terrible. The shadow of his cloak pools around him, obscuring him among the dark. He’s pallid, clammy, shivering, and when she checks his pulse it’s far too quick, fluttering like a caged bird.

She heals him without having to think twice about it, curing his wounds with a few words and a spark of green energy, and she watches with relief as color comes back to his face, and he stirs.

“Vex?” he asks, half a grunt, and she offers him her best smile.

“Found you,” she says, as if they were only playing hide and seek in the yard. He smiles back at her, a faint, tired thing.

“Knew ya would,” he mumbles, and Vex squeezes his hand.

“Pike is coming,” she tells him. “What happened?”

“Dunno. Stepped on something, and suddenly, here I was.”

“Are you hurt?”

“A bit.”

His hand at his side moves, and Vex realizes suddenly that part of what she took for shadow has distinctly reddish in tint.

“Hold still,” she orders, following the red to his side, where it seeps through a hole in his armor the size of a coin. Carefully she lays her hands over it, and Vax watches as green energy bleeds from her fingers and curls around the wound.

“You’re ‘mazing,” he says, laying his head back down. His eyes drift shut. “Always knew it.”

“Don’t sleep,” she tells him. She doesn’t understand why the healing isn’t working; already his skin is just as pallid as it was when she found him. “Brother, you can’t sleep.”

“Bossy,” he mumbles.

Vex laughs, a fake and strained thing. “That’s right. I’m sooooooo bossy. And I say you can’t sleep.”

“I’ll tell Mother,” he says faintly, almost petulant. Vex can’t tell if he’s playing along or if he believes it. Gods, she hopes he’s playing along.

“Oh will you?” she challenges.

“Mmm.”

He goes silent. Vex shakes him.

“Vax. Vax, look at me. You have to wait for Pike.”

His skin is still clammy and cold, his heartbeat too fast, his face too pale. She pours another healing spell into him, stronger this time, and it does almost nothing.

Pike won’t be here in time.

“Trinket,” she says, and Trinket turns to look over his shoulder. “Follow the string. Go get Pike. Bring her as fast as you can.”

She hates sending him away, hates the thought of him alone in the dark. But, without Pike––

He’s her brother. She won’t lose him.

Trinket turns and disappears into the dark, and Vex listens to the rhythm of his feet until she cannot hear him any more. Then the only sound is her brother’s rapid breathing.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she promises him, casting another healing spell, watching it spark life within him that slowly drains away before her very eyes. “Pike’s coming. It’ll be okay.”

“Course it’s okay,” he mumbles, eyes closed, as she sits vigil at his side. “You’re here.”

Vex has never waited so long in her life.

Then she hears the thump of paws on stone, and the clank of armor, and there is Pike, face set and eyes worried.

“What’s wrong?” she demands.

“I don’t know,” Vex admits. “I tried healing him but it doesn’t do any good.”

“Right.” She frowns, runs her fingers along his jaw, checks his pupils and his pulse. “Okay. I’m going to try a restoration.”

Vex wants to crack a joke about it––something about it being their old standard––but the world fall flat before they even leave her mouth, and all she can do is stay back and watch as Pike kneels over her brother’s prone body, head bowed, mouth moving in silent prayer.

Then there is golden light, and a smell like burning, and Vax gasps awake, sucking in deep breaths, and Pike seems almost to sag in on herself.

“What the fuck?” her brother asks, and Vex knows she’s fine.

She hits him.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!”

“You scared us all shitless!”

“Maybe we can get him one of those child leashes,” Pike suggests with a tired grin. Vex seriously considers it.

“Vex?” Keyleth’s voice crackles over the ear piece. “Is everything…?”

“He’s fine,” Vex says. “Pike’s here. It’s okay.”

“Oh.” She can hear the relief in her voice. “Good. Okay.”

“Perhaps this is a good time to regroup,” suggests Percy.

“We can keep looking later,” Pike agrees, and Vex helps her good-for-nothing brother to his feet.

“Don’t have to keep looking,” he says, smug despite everything, because of course he is. “I did find it.”

“Oh,” says Pike. “Well. Great!”

“Next time check for fucking traps.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Vax, and he winces when Vex elbows his bad side.

She huffs, and slips her shoulder under his to help him limp back to the group, and Trinket lumbers along behind them while Pike leads the way, carefully winding the red twine as they slip through the deep, pressing dark.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [teammompike](http://teammompike.tumblr.com)


End file.
